Endurance
by medicgirl
Summary: Young Jean puts her new boyfriend through a little endurance test... Poor Scott...


Author's note: This is my first X-Men story, and I pretty much wrote it for myself. Scott seems to me to be so uptight that if I was Jean I would take every chance I could to get him to lighten up, at least to me. Forgive any OOC-ness, this was all for fun when bored one night at work. Reviews are welcome, flames are pointless, I own nothing.

Scott Summers was stretched out on the leather sofa in the downstairs rec room at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, barely paying attention to the History Channel documentary on the Berlin Wall. Of course, most seventeen year old boys wouldn't be watching it at all, but Scott wasn't most boys. Even after two years, he was still so entranced by his newfound ability to see (even if it was only in shades of red) that he would watch anything. And not that he would admit it to Hank or 'Ro, but he was actually quite interested in history.

Any interest he had, however, faded when Jean walked into the room. At twenty-two, she was five years older than him, with long red hair flowing down her shoulders, a perfect figure, and a brain that could match wits with any criminal mastermind. And as of a few weeks ago, she was his girlfriend. He had no idea how a gawky, damaged kid like him had managed to attract a woman like Jean Grey, but they had been out several times and shared a few kisses that had absolutely rocked his world. And they had plans to go out again the next night.

He started to scramble out of his lounging position and make room for her on the couch, but she put a hand on his ankles and said in a voice that would melt honey into a gaseous state, "Just stay put, Scott. You're fine where you are." Her voice was enough to temporarily put his brain into lockdown mode, and by the time he had recovered enough to respond, she was sitting at the other end with his bare feet in her lap. As he realized that, he started to pull them back, out of her way, but she stopped him. "Just relax. You're fine."

He finally did as she said and relaxed, but as she began to run her fingers over his feet, he twitched slightly. At first, her fingers just roamed the tops of his feet, occasionally ghosting over his toes, and when they did, he was unable to keep from squirming just a little. He studied her face and saw a small smile forming around the corners of his mouth. That smile set off alarm bells, but he was still a seventeen year old boy and at the mercy of his hormones. Which were registering that there was an extremely hot woman touching him in a way that was far past casual. Who cared what she was doing?

He began to care a little more when her fingers moved to the bottoms of his crossed feet, running manicured fingernails slowly and very gently around on the sensitive skin. It wasn't the rough, vicious action one would normally associate with tickling, and the sensations attacking his body weren't unbearable. Well, not completely, anyway. While he could take it, he wasn't sure for how long. But he certainly wasn't going to be so weak in front of his brave, strong new girlfriend. As long as he possibly could, he would endure this torment. He couldn't have her thinking he was weak.

But as her fingers found the sensitive spot at the base of his toes and the agonizingly ticklish spot between them, his resolve began to weaken. Not showing weakness devolved into not breaking as he began to squirm, and not breaking devolved into not begging for mercy as a small whimper escaped his lips. He could pull his feet back at any time, but the idea of intentionally breaking contact with her was even more unbearable than what she was doing to him. And by this time, it had sapped his strength to the point where he wasn't even sure he could anymore.

The small smile had broken into a barely-concealed grin as she continued exploring his feet and watching him suffer out of the corner of her eye. He was holding up admirably, she had to give him credit. Her new boyfriend was tough. But watching him squirm like that was wonderful, and that pitiful whimper he let out as she ran her index finger between his big toe and his second one was possibly the sexiest thing she had ever heard.

Finally, when almost anyone else would have been either begging for mercy or a twitching mess in the floor, Scott managed to say in an almost level voice, "So, did I do something wrong?"

Jean looked at him, concerned, but did not pause in tormenting his feet. "Why would you think that?"

Scott whimpered again, louder this time, as she ran her fingernail back and forth across the base of his toes and he clearly fought the urge to pull away. "Well, I wasn't sure if-" he broke off as his voice cracked, and she flushed watching him fight to keep from laughing. "-if I was being punished for something, or if you just enjoyed torturing me."

"No, you're not being punished," she said, pausing to run her hands along the top of his feet to soothe him. She pointedly didn't deny the second charge. "Can't take it?"

Somewhere between bravado and the truth, he managed to stammer out, "I can take it. But not for long…"

She nodded, allowing the sweet smile that he fell for the first time he saw her to shine past her sadistic grin. "Ok," she said. "I'll let you go for now then." She rubbed his ankles for a few minutes to assure him she meant him no more harm.

His eyes fell closed as he enjoyed her touch without the tickling sensations, his tensed muscles relaxing and his libido making its self known again. His head laying back against the arm of the couch, eyes still closed, breathing heavier than normal at the exertion of remaining in control while she had tickled him, he asked, "Can I ask why?"

She waited until he raised his head to look at her before answering. "You're always so controlled. I wanted to see if you'd just lie there and take it, or if you'd react."

"So did I pass or fail?"

She ran her hand back to the underside of his foot, and he tensed up instantly, but she was just bluffing. "You held up admirably. Most men couldn't have stood it as long as you did. But you couldn't keep it all in, which shows that you are human. And the response I got… well, seeing careful, controlled Scott Summers squirm like that was… really hot. And that pitiful whimper of yours is about the sexiest thing I've ever heard."

Before his mind could even begin to process that, she had slipped out from under his feet, kissed him on the cheek, and hurried out of the room. He found himself alone in the rec room, his feet tingling and the most intense hard-on of his young life. It suddenly occurred to him that if his girlfriend took that much pleasure in seeing him squirm now, he was in serious trouble when they started sleeping together…


End file.
